The death of Jesus.
After he has thus ministered to others, attention is turned to himself.
I. THE THIRST OF THE SUFFERER. "After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst."
1. The burning fever caused by the inflammation of his wounds made him athirst. The cry attests his extreme suffering.
2. The minute fulfillment of prophecy is present to the Sufferer's mind. "They gave me vinegar to drink" (Psalms 69:21). He was surely "made perfect through suffering."
II. THE THIRST ASSUAGED. "Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar, and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth."
1. This drink was not that which he had refused at the beginning of his crucifixion—a drink given in mercy to stupefy the sufferer. Jesus would die in the perfect clearness of his faculties.
2. The act of the soldiers was one of compassion, not of mockery.
III. THE SURRENDER OF LIFE. "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished! and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."
1. The cry, "It is finished!" proclaimed:
2. The death.